PI: Kara Kockelman, University of Texas.
Project Description:
Regular reliance on self-driving vehicles, shared fleets and/or ride sharing will have obvious impacts on traffic congestion, parking demand, downtown activities, and curb use in dense city cores. A shift to plug-in vehicles can have very positive environmental impacts but requires thoughtful provision of EV charging stations. As seen with ride-hailing applications, curbs can become congested in popular locations, creating real issues for buses, special event management, parking conditions, and route circuity. To moderate travel’s environmental and traffic impacts, Seattle Airport may now be requiring ride-hailing vehicles to offer at least 45 mi/gal fuel economy, and Washington D.C. may soon disallow convention center pickups and drop-offs in TNC vehicles that do not have high passenger occupancy. Other cities are likely to follow suit. This work will explore optimal curb-use & charging station-provision policies of publicly & privately held self-driving electric vehicles, for individual & shared use, with & without dynamic ride sharing, under different vehicle range, refueling strategy & DRS adoption rates.